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Term Paper on Forest Plantations
Term Paper # 1. Introduction to Forest Plantations:
In the history of human development form the time of the earliest agricultural activities, man has cleared the natural forests and wood lands to obtain building materials and fuel wood and to provide lands for domestic animals and crops. The vast clearing of the tropical rain forests in Amazonia was principally to make way for cattle ranches and in Asia, the tropical forests were destroyed for palm oil and rubber plantations. As a result of significant increases in demand for wood, the global wood market is undergoing rapid changes, putting considerable and increasing pressure on the world’s remaining natural forests.
Without significant investment in promoting sustainable forest management (SFM) efforts and in plantation management, it is expected that increasing demand for wood will lead to further degradation and fragmentation of forests and permanent deforestation in many countries. To successfully change this situation, international wood demand must be met through sustainable wood production from natural forests and plantation management.
Planted forests supply wood, fibre, fuelwood and non-wood forest products for industrial and non-industrial uses. The benefits of wood products over competing products (cement, plastics and metal) are that they are renewable, energy efficient and environmentally friendly.
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Planted forests, when managed responsibly, can also contribute towards the provision of environmental services (soil and water protection, rehabilitation of degraded lands, restoration of landscapes, habitat development and carbon sequestration) and of social services and livelihood support (regional development, income generation, employment and recreation). They may also offset pressure for wood production from primary forests and valuable forest ecosystems.
At present, forest plantations account for about 7 per cent of global forest area or about 2 per cent of global land area, i.e., slightly less than 300 million hectares. At the same time, they provide more than half the industrial wood produced in the world and their extent and productivity are increasing. Compared with naturally regenerating forests, planted forests represent a higher investment per area unit and normally produce higher values through their products and services.
They are also diverse in size and type, ranging from smallholdings to industrial plantations and from primarily protective functions to a wood production orientation. Planted forests stretch from boreal to tropical zones and use native and introduced tree species. Planted forests are also sometimes controversial in achieving a balance among sociocultural, environmental and economic benefits which can be a challenge for its growth.
Term Paper # 2. History of Forest Plantations
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Trees have been planted for thousands of years for food, wood, shelter and religious purposes. The first woody plants to be cultivated were undoubtedly those yielding food or other non-timber products. The first selection and planting of a woody species may have been the olive (Olea europea), a thorny shrub growing near Syrian and Anatolian coasts, as early as 4000 BC.
Subsequently selected varieties of olive were transported to the eastern Mediterranean e.g., the cultivation of olive has been known in Greece at least since the Minoan ear (3000 BC) for food and olive oil for clay lamps. The olive was exported to Egypt in the same period.
The edible fig (Ficus carica) was also cultivated in Mediterranean region as early as 4000 BC. The myrrh trees (Commiphora myrrha) were introduced to Egypt from Somalia in 1500 BC and planted for sources of perfume. Olives, walnuts and almonds from the Middle East and Western Asia were moved into China during 208 BC – 265 AD.
The apple (Malus pumila) was cultivated for a few centuries BC by the Greeks and Romans and it was spread throughout Europe and Asia as a result of their travels and military conquests. The Romans also introduced the edible, nut-bearing, sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) into Britain.
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In the fourth century BC, Theophrastus reported trees of frankincence (Boswellia spp) and myrrh being planted on private estates in southern Arabia, and Aristotle established what was probably first arboretum in Greece. Cato (234 BC) recorded the planting of willows (Salix spp) and poplars (Populus spp) and noted that a conifer was planted for ship’s timber.
There are also several Biblical references to tree planting in the first millennium. Trees were moved around world by the Romans, Greeks, Chinese and by others during military conquests. Voyages of discovery by European navigators to the Americas and Asia provided new opportunities to transfer tree germplasm between distant countries.
Forest plantations are not anything new. In southwestern France, for example, there are records of man-made forests as early as year 1500, as well as evidence of trading in forest products, both wood and non-wood from maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) plantations. These early plantations resulted mainly from the initiative of private landlords as well as smallholders and communities, primarily for commercial purposes (i.e., the trade of wood and resin products), but also for direct household needs.
In this same area there are records of zones planted with pines and other vegetation to control the advance of sand dunes before 1600. Therefore, there is evidence of commercial, smallholder and community man-made forests, for both production and protection purposes, from as early as 400 to 500 years ago.
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This particular region of Southwestern France is known as the “Landes de Gascogne” which is nowadays a compact plantation forest of more than one million hectares. While ownership is more than 90 per cent private, with more than 40,000 owners of all sizes, the State plays a limited but effective role in the management of this area and so do local governments.
Closer to home, teak (Tectona grandis) was successfully introduced in Sri Lanka as early as 1680. This same species was successfully planted in Java, India and Bangladesh during early 19th century. Additionally, eucalypts were successfully planted in India in 1790. Expanding area of planted forests, to a large extent, has resulted from the inclusion of plantation programmes in the national forest policies of many countries in recent years, especially since the mid-sixties.
For the most part, these man-made forests have concentrated on industrial plantations; however, they have also included plantations for protection purposes, as well as rapidly expanding agroforestry and social forestry efforts. This important area of forest plantations reflects a sizable set of investments in which economic agents of several categories have participated, namely – enterprising individuals, private sector enterprises, communities, rural households, governments (both national and local), international funding organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Term Paper # 3. Status of Global Planted Forests
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Planted forests are composed of trees established through planting and/or through deliberate seeding of native or introduced species. Establishment is either through afforestation on land that until then was not classified as forest, or by reforestation of land classified as forest, after a fire or a storm or following clear-felling.
Forests and trees are planted for many purposes and make up an estimated 6.6 per cent of the total forest area, or 264 million ha in 2010. Most of the plantations were established through afforestation i.e., planting of areas not forested in recent times.
Three-quarters of all planted forests consist of native species while one-quarter comprises introduced species. At the global level planted forest area has steadily increased since 1990 by an average of 4.3 million ha per year. During 2000-2010, the area of planted forest increased by about 5 million ha per year.
Given this trend, a further rise in the planted forest area up to 300 million ha by 2020 can be anticipated. The impact of this development on timber markets should be considered by policy-makers, planners and forest managers and supported by outlook studies that evaluate the future contribution of planted forests to economic, environmental and social services.
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East Asia, Europe and North America reported the greatest area of planted forests, together accounting for about 75 per cent of global planted forest area. In East Asia, planted forests make up 35 per cent of the total forest area and most of these are found in China.
The second largest area of planted forests is found in Europe and the third largest area of planted forests is available in North America. The sub-regions reporting the smallest area of planted forests are African sub-regions, the Caribbean, Central America and Western and Central Asia.
In total, there are 33 countries with a planted forest area above 1 million ha which together account for 90 per cent of the global planted forest area. Of these, China, USA, Russian Federation, Japan and India together account for more than half the world’s planted forests (53 per cent).
Top ten countries with greatest annual increase in planted forest area during 1990-2010 are China (1.932 million ha per year), USA (0.805 million ha per year), Canada (0.385 million ha per year), India (0.251 million ha per year), Russian Federation (0.199 million ha per year), Mexico (0.178 million ha per year), Brazil (0.156 million ha per year), Vietnam (0.134 million ha per year), Turkey (0.091 million ha per year) and Finland (0.082 million ha per year).
Term Paper # 4. Significance of Forest Plantations
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Forest plantations are variously defined in the literature and even the standardized definition adapted by FAO has significantly changed over time. The main shared characteristics of these definitions point to forested areas artificially established by planting or seeding. Other features are that the trees usually belong to the same species (native or introduced), have the same age structure and are regularly spaced.
Forest plantations are defined as those forests stands established by planting and/or seeding in the process of afforestation or reforestation. They are either of introduced or indigenous species that meet a minimum area requirement of 0.5 ha, tree crown cover of at least 10 per cent of the land cover and total height of adult trees above 5m.
Forest plantations embrace a range of forest types with the one common feature that the great majority of the trees present were established on the site by planting and/or seeding (sowing). There is no internationally agreed definition of forest plantations, although the expression ‘planted forest’ is now widely used to embrace the continuum of forest types where forest origin is known to be by planting.
Mostly plantations contain a single tree species, although plantations of a mixture of species are important in some parts of the world. Plantation forestry is often much like any other agricultural enterprise, aiming to grow highly productive forests on relatively small areas of land, so the land is being used most efficiently. For achieving this, much attention is to be paid to the silviculture of plantations, i.e. to the tending of the trees to achieve some desired objectives.
As the population of the world increases and its economies grow, so does the amount of wood people use, for firewood, for building, for paper and for many other purposes. Plantation forestry will become more important in meeting the growing demand for wood. Today, plantation forests play a significant role for wood production, especially in tropical countries, because of several important characteristics including high yield, short rotations and accessibility.
Although some plantations are for protection purposes, most are for production and plantation’s share in providing round wood to industry is growing. Plantation forestry is also increasingly changing from large-scale investments in monocultures to small-scale investments in which local households and communities are the principle owners of the means of production. On all the continents, there are large plantation areas grown to produce wood for industrial use. They often cover millions of hectares and are major commercial enterprises.
Some are publicly owned and some are privately owned. They are important economically to the countries concerned, often earning export income and providing employment, both in their growing and in the processing of the wood they produce. Many such plantations are grown for only 7-15 year rotations before harvesting. Usually, these produce wood for papermaking. Others are grown on 20-30 year rotations, by which time the trees will be large enough for their stems to be sawn to produce timber.
An emerging type of industrial plantation is being grown to produce bioenergy. The wood from such plantations is used to make energy, either through fermentation to produce ethanol for use as motor fuel or through burning the wood to generate electricity. The primary stimulus for the establishment of bioenergy plantations comes from concerns about the global warming of the atmosphere, which is believed to be caused by the release of greenhouse gases including CO2.
Bioenergy plantations are usually grown on very short rotations (perhaps 3-5 years) and the small size of their trees at harvest is of no importance, because they are simply going to be burnt or used for fermentation. Additionally, plantation forestry in the developing nations of tropical areas is very strongly nested on the political agenda due to the planted forest’s carbon storage capacity as noticed in the climate change debate.
New incentives such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), afforestation/reforestation methodologies and the debated mechanism of Reducing Emissions form Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), emphasize plantations as a relatively cheap, clean and harmless means of emission compensation.
Term Paper # 5. Paradigm Shifts in Tropical Forest Plantations
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While forest plantations are a phenomenon known for millennia, in the tropical context they have evolved significantly since the early colonization period. Planting activities, associated predominantly with technical skills and silvicultural knowledge, have been affected by ideational factors, norms, social context and the broader historical and economic developments.
Although the humanistic and social scientific research on plantations has been recognized, it remains rather marginal and weak in theory-building, macro diagnosis and critical reflections. The theoretical concept of a paradigm is defined as a set of assumptions, values and practices that constitutes the way of perceiving reality shared by the community, especially in intellectual and scientific circles.
The tropical forest plantations have undergone many paradigm shifts worldwide in various time periods viz.:
1. Pre-industrial paradigm,
2. Industrial colonial paradigm,
3. Industrial post-colonial or industrial national paradigm,
4. Protective paradigm,
5. Social paradigm,
6. Neo-liberal paradigm,
7. Neo-liberal modified paradigm,
8. Global political.
1. Pre-Industrial Paradigm:
Tree planting in ancient times was limited due to the wide availability of natural forests. However, with the migration of people and functions of valued tree species, tree planting was a common practice. Ancient tree planting practices worldwide share many common properties as non-exclusive land use, community management, multipurpose functions, small scale and use of local knowledge during pre-industrial paradigm.
2. Industrial Colonial Paradigm:
Forest plantations on a larger scale with a commercial purpose were started in the global south in the 16th and 17th century during industrial colonial paradigm. Firstly, plantations of hardwood species were developed for strategic purposes (teak) e.g. ship building and later for commercial purpose (teak, eucalypts, etc.). This paradigm introduced a restricted exclusive land use for tree planting with specially designed authorities responsible for plantation management.
The vertical top-down decision making scheme, introduction of Western scientific forestry knowledge and delegitimizing the local traditional cognizance were important elements of industrial colonial paradigm. The other was the way plantations were justified and explained to the populations as a means to bring progress and economic development. The new plantations required much more initial capital investments but were also able to bring economic benefits for the colonial enterprises.
3. Industrial National Paradigm:
The important elements of this paradigm are exclusive land ownership, centralization, land accumulation, forest management by national forest departments, economic goals, progress-discourse for justification, vertical top-down decision making scheme, national scientific forestry knowledge from the West, State incentives and plantations of softwood and hardwood.
4. Protective Paradigm:
It was initiated as a counterbalance for industrial productive plantations and due to high deforestation with the goal to use tree planting for soil, water, wind regulation and environmental services. The protective paradigm intensified in the 20th century with soil protection in many parts of Africa (e.g. Ethiopia), combating desert encroachment (e.g. Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Sudan) or flood protection (e.g. China’s reforestation programmes).
Protective plantations bring new justification for planting and promote generally non-exclusive land use, national priorities and national scientific forestry knowledge with local functions. Investments in plantations are made by State with the objective of no or low production.
5. Social Paradigm:
The world forestry congresses in the 1970s with the themes “forests and socioeconomic development” and “forests for the people” clearly illustrated the ideational change from technocratic towards more responsible and socially-engaged forestry.
Social paradigm partly reflected the pre-industrial paradigm by empowering local traditional knowledge, role of the communities in management, bottom-up decision making and horizontal governance. The major elements are non-exclusive land ownership, adapted technology transfer, multiple knowledge, agroforestry, community investments and external organization finance and moderate productivity due to multi-functionality.
6. Neo-Liberal Paradigm:
Global economic re-conceptualization according to neo- liberal thought assured a big change in plantation actors and financing, especially in the developing world. The State, the previous leader in promoting industrial plantations has been widely replaced by the private actors. Due to increased silvicultural technology and high growth rates in the tropics, many private transnational actors started to engage in plantation initiatives.
The neo-liberal paradigm in plantations stressing “growth” in monetary terms promoted again exclusive land use, private management, top-down decision making and international forestry knowledge. Huge private capital investments resulted in an extremely high productivity as the increment records from Brazil of 90 m3 per hectare per year.
7. Neo-Liberal Modified Paradigm:
Social conflicts caused by neo-liberal plantations lead to a new approach called neo-liberal modified paradigm. It refers to constraints of the private companies and a need to limit land grabbing by establishing partnerships with local farmers, who remain landowners and can be contracted to plant trees.
The major elements are exclusive land use without ownership, management according to the ownership schemes, profit maximization, constrained top-down outlook, international scientific forestry with possible local inputs, investments reduced by land costs, possible benefit-sharing, high growth and productivity.
8. Global Political Paradigm:
The new emerging paradigm in forest plantations called global-political originates from the ideas of international community present in international agencies and global conventions. It promotes project-management style of plantation projects and global priorities are negotiated between States, sectors and scientific disciplines.
Examples include short rotation plantations for the global resources supply (UNFF), plantations to mitigate climate change and carbon storage (UNFCCC), plantations to protect global biodiversity (UNCBD) and plantations to combat desertification (UNCCD).
Term Paper # 6. Sustainability of Forest Plantations
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Broad and Narrow Sense Sustainability:
Forest plantations are an increasingly important resource worldwide, a trend that is expected to continue strongly. The question of sustainability in plantation forestry has two components. There are the general or broad issues of whether using land and devoting resources to tree plantations is a sustainable activity from the economic, environmental or from the social sense. They can be labelled ‘broad sense’ sustainability. The second component, ‘narrow-sense’ sustainability, is largely a biological and silvicultural issue.
The question raised is – can tree plantations be grown indefinitely for rotation after rotation on the same site without serious risk to their well-being? More specifically, can their long-term productivity be assured, or will it eventually decline over time? These questions are pertinent owing to the increasing reliance on plantation forestry, but are also scientifically challenging since in previous centuries trees and woodlands were seen as soil improvers and not impoverishers.
Today’s silvicultural practices are more damaging because of greater intensity and the high timber yields achieved, typically 2-4 times that of natural forest increment. And, of course, are resources such as genetic improvement, targeted fertilizer application, and sophisticated manipulation of stand density, along with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, likely to lead to crop yield improvement, but such intensive silvicultural practices also lead to genuine site degradation or increasing risk of damage by pests and diseases. The concept of sustainability is central to sound forest management and the subject of much debate.
In the case of forest plantations established with the specific purpose of producing wood, whether for industrial purposes or domestic use, it must be assured for the perpetual supply of forest products. Accurate evidence about the sustainability of plantation forestry is needed, since future supplies of forest products will increasingly come from intensively managed forests and plantations.
Soil Fertility Changes:
Demonstrating that soil changes may be caused by forestry practices, is usually difficult to establish conclusively both in fact and in scale. An absence of sound baseline data is common and there is a question about reported change actually induced by plantation silviculture.
Plantations may have three impacts viz. nutrient removal from soil as trees grow and then are harvested; changes in the chemistry of the soil surface as the litter layer and organic matter are dominated by one species and hence uniform composition and decay characteristics; and site preparation practices such as ploughing, drainage and fertilizing which directly affect soil physical parameters and in turn nutrient and moisture availability.
Litter:
The influence of litter on soil nutrient status may be important since leaves of different species decay at different rates. For example, substantial accumulations may develop under Pinus patula on certain sites while this is unusual beneath the more lightly canopied Pinus elliottii. In broad-leaved stands, accumulation of litter is uncommon though not unknown. Even under teak and Gmelina, which usually suppress all other vegetation, the large leaves readily decay.
Similarly under the light crowns of eucalyptus and the nitrogen rich foliage of leguminous trees such as Acacia, Leucaena and Prosopis spp and non-legume N-fixers such as casuarinas, litter build up is rare owing to rapid decay of the rich organic matter.
Soil Physical Conditions:
Plantation forestry may impact soil physical conditions and hence sustainability through-(1) site preparation and establishment operations, (2) the effects of tree growth itself for example on water uptake, and (3) harvesting practices.
Organic Matter Dynamics:
What happens to the litter and organic matter layer at the soil surface is critical to the question of sustainability. The surface litter layer helps prevent soil erosion. Litter and organic matter represent a significant nutrient store, albeit a dynamic one. The ‘litter-organic matter-mineral soil interface’ is the seat of nutrient cycling and microbial activity.
Any activity that disturbs these roles in the ecosystem can have large effects of which perhaps most serious of all, and still practiced in some countries, is regular and frequent litter raking. In commercial plantation forestry, the cost of managing debris and site preparation when restocking plantations is expensive and a high proportion of the establishment costs.
Weeds:
Establishment of plantations greatly affects ground vegetation with many operations designed directly or indirectly to reduce weed competition to ensure that the planted tree has sufficient access to site resources. A neglected but critical phase is managing the weed problem through crop harvesting and restocking. In subsequent rotations, the weed spectrum often changes.
Birds and animals may introduce new weed species, grass seed may be blown into plantations and accumulate over several years, and roads and rides in plantations can become sources of weed seeds. Weed management must be a holistic operation. Failure of proper weed management will always result in yield declines and less sustainability. Often, the significance of weeds has been insufficiently recognized on restocked sites in second or third rotations.
A great majority of forest plantations are of uniform age and composition (monoculture) and most are managed to optimize the yield of wood from a site. Clear-felling and replanting is the most common silvicultural system although, where appropriate, coppicing is used as a means of restocking.
These features of plantation silviculture have raised concern that many of the sites on which trees are planted may be incapable of sustaining their productivity. Models of nutrient export, examination of physical damage of soil structure and claims of greater risk from pests and diseases have all been advanced as hypotheses for the inherent unsustainability of intensive plantation forestry.
Term Paper # 7. Planted Forest Management:
Planted forest management means the planning and implementation of all types of regulations, institutional arrangements, research and development activities, policies, monitoring and forest operations related to the planted forest, whether at strategic policy levels or at the operational field level.
Exotics in Plantation Forestry:
Majority of the industrial plantations in most countries are being raised with exotic tree species like Eucalyptus spp, Acacia spp, Pinus spp, etc.
The reasons for greater preference for the selection of exotic species include:
i. There is generally a lack of adequate knowledge in the propagation and silvicultural management of indigenous species.
ii. There is generally plentiful supply of seeds of the exotic species.
iii. The exotic species are easy for handling.
iv. The exotics are fast growing and high yielding.
The selection of indigenous species for raising forest plantations are poorly recognized in many countries. There is a need for consolidated research works and concrete evidences for promoting the identified and priority indigenous tree species in plantation forestry at national level. Many countries have already initiated research works for identifying promising indigenous trees and plantations have been raised at national level also.
Genetic Improvement:
Better adapted species, change in seed origin, use of new clones, use of genetically improved seed and, in the future, genetically modified trees all offer the prospect of better yields in plantation forestry. The impact of all these genetic improvements will affect yield and outturn directly and indirectly through better survival and greater suitability to the site which may lead to increased vigour and perhaps greater pest and disease resistance.
Some of the world’s most productive tree plantations use clonal material, including both eucalyptus and poplars. It is clear that both the potential productivity and the uniformity of product make plantation forestry attractive. Although clonal forestry has a narrow genetic base, careful management of clone numbers and the way they are inter-planted can minimize pest and disease problems e.g., use of 30-40 unrelated clones will generally provide security against catastrophic failure.
Through an array of selection, crossing, and propagating techniques traits can be favoured that may improve vigour, stem and wood quality, pest and disease resistance and other parameters such as frost tolerance. There are many examples of successful tree improvement strategies most of which are only beginning to bear fruit owing to long tree rotations and the slow process of tree breeding, particularly in orchard establishment and promotion of flowering, and in field testing of selections and progenies.
Genetic tree improvement offers by far the greatest assurance of sustained and improved yields from successive rotations in the medium and long-term. There are no widely planted examples at present where genetic engineering has modified trees. The expectation is that genetically modified trees will be used to develop disease resistance, modified wood properties, cold or drought tolerance rather than increase in vigour.
Silvicultural Techniques:
Silvicultural knowledge continues to increase through research and field trials and greater understanding of tree and stand physiology. While large yield improvements appear unlikely, incremental gains can be expected. Manipulation of stocking levels will achieve greater output of fibre or a particular product, by fuller site occupancy, less mortality and greater control of individual tree growth. Matching rotation length to optimize yield – the rotation of maximum mean annual increment – offers worthwhile yield gain in many cases.
In some localities, prolonging the life of stands subject to wind throw by silvicultural means will increase yield over time. Use of mixed crops on a site may aid tree stability, may lower pest and disease threats, but is unlikely to raise productivity over growing the best suited species. Silvicultural systems that maintain forest cover at all times – continuous cover forestry – such as shelter wood and selection systems are likely to be neutral to slightly negative in production terms while benefiting tree quality, aesthetics, and probably biodiversity value.
Crop rotation, as practiced in farming, appears unlikely. There are examples of forest plantations benefiting from a previous crop of nitrogen fixing species e.g. Acacia mearnsii but industry is likely to require a similar not a widely differing species when replanting.
Fertilization:
Most forest use of fertilizer is to correct known deficiencies e.g. micronutrients such as boron in much of tropics and macronutrients such as phosphorus on impoverished sites in many parts of both the tropical and the temperate world. In most instances, fertilizer is only required once in a rotation. Fertilizer application is likely to be the principal means of compensating for nutrient losses on those sites where plantation forestry practice does cause net nutrient export to detriment of plant growth.
Site Preparation:
Ground preparation to establish the first plantation crop will normally introduce sufficient site modification for good tree growth in the long term. Substantial site manipulation is unlikely for second and subsequent rotations, unless there was failure first time around, except to alleviate soil compaction after harvesting or measures to reduce infections and pest problems.
Weed Control:
Weed control strategies may change from one rotation to the next owing to differing weed spectrum and whether weeds are more or less competitive. The issue is crucial to sustainability since all the main examples of yield decline reflect worsening weed environments, especially competition from grasses and bamboos.
Conservation of Organic Matter:
It is clear from many investigations that treatment of organic matter both over the rotation and during felling and replanting is as critical to sustainability as coping with the weed environment. While avoidance of whole tree harvesting is probably desirable on nutrition grounds, it is now evident that both prevention of systematic litter raking or gathering during the rotation and conserving organic matter at harvesting are essential.
Pest and Disease Incidence:
A serious threat to plantations can arise from a massive build-up of a pest or disease. It has been much disputed whether monoculture itself is more susceptible to devastation from these causes. The broadly accepted ecological principle of stability is that the stability of a community and its constituent species is positively related to its diversity.
Following this reasoning, foresters have stressed that substitution of natural forest by even-aged monoculture plantations may remove many of the natural constraints on local tree pest and pathogens and thus increase risk of attack. Increased susceptibility mostly arises from conditions in plantations rather than because only one tree species is present. The relative susceptibility of monocultures to pest and disease attack is complex ecologically.
Plantations of one or two species offer an enormous food source and ideal habitat to any pest and pathogen species adapted to them. Uniformity of species and closeness of trees including branch contact above ground and root lesions in the soil, allow rapid colonization and spread of infection. Narrow genetic base in plantations e.g., one provenance or no genetic variation (e.g., clones) reduces the inherent variability in resistance to attack. Trees grow on a site for many years and permit pest or disease to build up over time.
Many plantations are of introduced species and while without the insect pests and pathogens that occur in their native habitat also missing are the many natural agencies controlling pests and diseases. Efficient management of pest and diseases in forest plantations is very important factor for the success of plantations.
Term Paper # 8. Constraints in Plantation Forestry
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In many countries, while forest plantations are a lucrative option to supply the ever increasing demand for wood on a sustainable basis, the planting of timber trees on a plantation scale is constrained by a number of other factors that are critical. Ecology, land, site and species selection, planting material, labour and mechanization and economics are the major constraints for the success of plantation forestry.
1. Ecology:
The establishment of forest plantation involves extensive alteration of the ecosystem particularly when heavy equipment is employed. The complex closed nutrient cycle in tropical rain forests is disrupted for a long time. This can lead to reduction of productivity unless ameliorative measures are undertaken. Furthermore, monocultures further destabilize the system and require heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides.
Many slow-growing species grown under fast plantation conditions have poorer quality. There is the problem of species-site matching for the heterogeneous area of large plantations. The danger of fire may also increase in exotic species plantation.
2. Land:
It is an established fact that land is the world’s most valuable resource and public scrutiny of land is becoming more intense with each passing year. With increasing population, the competition on land for agriculture, forests and plantations, pasture and development activities is ever increasing. For a forest plantation investment to be commercially viable, a large area is required.
The size of the land required will vary with the objective of the plantation. If the timber is for sawmilling and furniture manufacturing then a smaller area would suffice. On the other hand, if the objective is in establishing a chip or pulp and paper mill then larger areas are required for raising plantations.
It would always be desirable to have a single contiguous piece of land area and if not, the required land area should just be in about two or three nearby parcels only. This is to ensure easy and efficient management of the activities. It is always preferable that the acquired land is close to basic amenities and near a relatively accessible road system and within an economic range to a processing mill or market. As an example, to operate efficiently a pulp or a chip mill the plantation should be located within a 100 km radius.
Otherwise, exorbitant cost for the transportation of logs would render the operations uneconomical. Another factor is that land is under the State’s jurisdiction. Land being a state prerogative implies that commercial organizations may have to deal with different procedures adopted by each State Governments. Often inquiries on information regarding land can become very difficult. Besides sufficient land, the location with suitable infrastructure and the premium rate for leasing are also crucial factors.
3. Site Selection:
It is essential to have an in-depth knowledge on local site conditions and silviculture, for deciding which species is to be raised under what conditions. It is not advisable to raise some susceptible tree species on unsuitable soil and climatic condition. Susceptible species bears the huge risk of pest and disease attack and failure to produce the desired yield. It is also advisable to have the knowledge of plant and root growth of a particular tree species on the site conditions. Soil and climatic conditions will be the major factors which will decide the success of plantation programme.
4. Species Selection:
A review of many reforestation projects in the tropics revealed that about 95 per cent of projects utilized exotics in the reforestation programmes. For plantations, although indigenous species are available, a greater preference is given for the selection of exotic species. There is a great challenge ahead to carry out adequate studies on the indigenous species to see their viability for forest plantations.
5. Inadequate Supply of Elite Planting Material:
In general, high levels of productivity are achieved when genetic and physiological potential of the species are well matched with management practices which promote rapid growth. Valuable improvements can be made in important properties such as stem form and wood density through selection and breeding. One major constraint that is currently perceived is the shortage of good planting material for the various plantation programmes.
Quality seeds and plus trees that have been selected and reproduced by vegetative methods are inadequate to meet current and projected needs. While efforts are being stepped up to overcome this problem, middlemen and overnight nurseries are providing planting materials whose genetic sources are unknown.
6. Labour and Mechanization:
Labour supply is another issue of great concern. In many countries, the agricultural sector is experiencing a shortage of labour because of the rural to urban migration of youth in search of better job opportunities. Although the labour requirement in forest plantations is less than in agriculture, it still has to compete for labour in an expanding economy.
One option to alleviate the labour shortage is increased mechanization. Machines developed in most advanced countries are environmentally friendly and highly flexible in their operation in forest plantations. But again the mechanized plantation activities are limited by the size of plantation area, higher initial and operation cost.
7. Economic Factors:
The planting of timbers on a plantation scale is constrained by a number of economic factors as well. The first thing will be high initial capital investment to establish the forest plantations. The long period, between initial planting efforts and harvesting, is another important concern and thus the corresponding concern for interest being carried until harvesting period.
The high biological and economic risk involved in forest plantations are major limiting factors. Unattractive and inappropriate investment incentives provided by the Government for forest plantation investments result in the lack of interest from private sectors in commercial ventures in forest plantation development.